Kemp Decision Sets Up Change

CORRECTION, 8:45 a.m., May 5, 2025: This file was updated to reflect that Chatham County has 8 municipalities, in addition to unincorporated areas. We’d left one out. Here’s the list if you’re curious: Savannah, Pooler, Bloomingdale, Garden City, Port Wentworth, Tybee Island, Vernonburg, Thunderbolt.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Good morning! In the news, a political shakeup in Coastal Georgia as a state senator travels to Savannah to announce his candidacy for lieutenant governor and a congressman weighs his options; two people highlight the governor’s bill-signing ceremony in the Hostess City; a county commission chairman closes the doors to reporters; and some things you may have missed. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com

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NEWS: POLITICS

Elections picture starts to take shape

With the towering blue cranes at Savannah’s port as a backdrop, state Sen. Josh McLaurin announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor on Monday, making it clear that he and other Georgia Democrats will seek to turn the tables on what has been a winning issue for Donald Trump and Republicans: the economy.

The setting was apt. As a massive cargo ship piled high with shipping containers, some labeled “China shipping,” cruised up the Savannah River, McLaurin said that Trump’s tariffs now threaten trade with Beijing, which makes up about a third of the port’s business. That, in turn, threatens the state’s well-being.

“You hear a lot that Georgia is a great place for business,” the 37-year-old lawmaker from Sandy Springs said. “Well, it’s a great place for big business but increasingly more difficult for small businesses, for everyday folks who are entrepreneurs, who are trying to live the American dream.”

Even as McLaurin was preparing to announce his candidacy at the riverfront, Gov. Brian Kemp disclosed on X that he would not run next year for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Jon Ossoff.

That opens the way for Coastal Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter, who has long harbored senatorial ambitions. Carter posted a statement, also on X, thanking Kemp for his “years of friendship and dedicated service to Georgia” but giving no indication of his future political plans. Recent polls suggest, however, that Carter would face an uphill climb to win the nomination.

One poll conducted last month showed Carter with 13.1% support among likely Republican primary voters, trailing Marjorie Taylor Greene (42.7%), Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (22%), and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins (15%).

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NEWS: GOVERNING

‘Very proud’

Brian Kemp may have been the most powerful man in the room at the Georgia governor’s bill-signing ceremony at the Savannah Convention Center last week. But it was the smiles of two other attendees that carried the day.

First, there was Lorie Franklin, whose husband Lehman, a Republican state representative from Statesboro, who authored the bill ensuring the woman’s right to in vitro fertilization in Georgia, thwarting efforts to ban the procedure.

Due to give birth later this month to the couple’s first child that was conceived using IVF, Lorie Franklin looked on with tears welling in her eyes as Kemp put pen to paper, one of 29 measures he signed into law at the convention center on Thursday, The Current’s Craig Nelson writes.

Then there was longtime Democratic state representative from Savannah, Carl Gilliard, who had worked for years to win legislative approval for construction of a monument on the grounds of the state capitol dedicated to the 33 Black lawmakers elected to the state legislature in 1868.

The “Original 33” were subsequently expelled from the assembly by white lawmakers. At least 14 were lynched.

In authorizing the construction of the memorial, Kemp noted Gilliard’s efforts to win approval of the “Original 33” bill.

“I know this is something that Carl worked very hard on,” the governor said, as Gilliard beamed. “He’s also very proud of this accomplishment, and we’re proud to celebrate that with you.”

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NEWS: ACCOUNTABILITY

Closed doors

In violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of Georgia’s government transparency laws, Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis barred two reporters for the Savannah Morning News and The Current‘s managing editor from attending a meeting last week to discuss a referendum on the county’s special purpose option sales tax.

Ellis convened the meeting of local mayors and city managers at the Savannah Civic Center to discuss the referendum, which has been rumored for months but hasn’t been placed officially on the Nov. 4 ballot. It isn’t known whether the county commission’s eight members were invited to the gathering or if any participated.

The county’s public information office said the meeting wasn’t subject to the state’s Open Meetings Act because Ellis and the invitees didn’t constitute an “agency” or “governing body” as defined in the act.

Georgia’s courts have ruled, however, that public officials may not exclude the public from workshops, fact-finding and purely deliberative sessions simply because no final action is taken or anticipated. 

Savannah and Chatham’s seven other municipalities are scheduled to present their proposed projects for funding under the special purpose option sales tax, or SPLOST, to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners on May 23.

In contrast to Ellis’ secrecy and maneuvering over the expected referendum, Glynn County officials will hold a meeting tomorrow at the Harold Pate Building on the status of Glynn’s SPLOST initiative. The session is open to the public and will include a 30-minute comment period at the end of the meeting. It can also be watched online.

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ICYMI

• Enough: Savannah District 4 Alderman Nick Palumbo goes on Facebook to denounce an item “buried at the end” of the agenda for Thursday’s city council meeting: A city request for an additional $14 million for Enmarket Arena parking lot project, on top of the $15 million he says has already been spent.
• ‘Irreparable harm’: Former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, now head of the federal Small Business Administration, touts workforce development during an appearance with Gov. Kemp at Effingham County College & Career Academy in Rincon. The previous day, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged the Trump administration to establish a “tariff exclusion process” to keep the U.S. economy from falling into recession and inflicting “irreparable harm” on small businesses.
• ‘Short-term’ problems: U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter says the Trump administration’s tariffs have “caused some problems in the short term but this is long term that he’s addressing the unfair trade that exists.” In his weekly newsletter, Carter writes that there have been “trillions of dollars of investment” in America during Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.
• A first: Charlie Bailey, a former attorney general and lieutenant governor candidate, was elected the Georgia Democratic Party’s first full-time chair on Saturday.
• Not amused: After Donald Trump posts an AI-generated image of himself as the pope, the New York State Catholic Conference says, “There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

• ‘Emergency funds’: Glynn County’s Finance Committee has been told that as part of DOGE cost-cutting measures, FEMA has withdrawn a grant that would have covered 80% of the costs of five generators the county purchased and used during Hurricane Helene. “We will have to tap into our emergency funds,” county finance director Tamara Munson tells the committee.
• ‘Unknown effects’: “In the short run, growth in the Savannah metro economy is now expected to slow in 2025 and fall below its long-term trend. Whether this results in economic contraction in the Savannah metro economy will depend on the as-yet unknown effects of evolving U.S. trade policy,” says Georgia Southern’s “Economic Monitor.”
• Some would beg to differ: Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole calls Clemson University’s Memorial Stadium “home of the greatest football team in the country.”

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